If the Financial Inclusion 2020 campaign asked me how I can accelerate financial capability to meet full inclusion by 2020, I would start looking for already established systems with wide consumer outreach that I can leverage with ease. One such system is religion. I would seek the help of religions to spread financial literacy and invigorate financial capability for the world’s excluded majority.

Why do I believe that religious orders systems hold the key to faster capability building and inclusion? Here are a few reasons to support my belief:

The religious orders’ outreach infrastructure to the intended beneficiaries of formal financial services is wide and deep, cutting across all demographic and geographical regions in the world. The infrastructure is more elaborate among the poor since spiritual seeds are better received in the fertile poverty seedbeds. You may miss everything else in the poor neighborhoods but you will find a house of prayer of some kind.

Religious orders have perhaps the most frequent touch points with their followers other than perhaps schools. Most religious orders have at least four days of contact in a month. Christian denominations, for example, have frequent contacts going by different names such as worship, mass, fellowship, and others. Fortunately, the consumers of spiritual products are also consumers of financial services. In fact, religious organizations reach the intended financial inclusion target almost effortlessly with permanent co-existence among them.

Religious orders, in addition to their spiritual roles, are strong stakeholders in the financial system as they derive their incomes from their customers. They invest in schools, hospitals, and real estate, and create businesses that generate further incomes.

They can be good collaborators and champions in financial capability because their adherents look up to them for guidance.

The religious orders enjoy a privileged position of undivided attention in spiritual moments during service and worship. Perhaps a monologue such as a sermon or homily can snatch some moments for financial literacy messages. The moment after offertory can be a great touch point for financial literacy messages. This is the moment when a congregation feels the joy of giving which triggers humility and submissiveness conducive to mental/emotional learning. Short financial literacy messages can be offered at such moments.

If asked to construct such a financial literacy message, this is what I would design: “Thank you, dear congregation, for your generous offerings. We pray that God/Allah/—/ reveals to you many ways to earn money, guide you as you do your budgeting, and bless you as you save for tomorrow. May He guide you in your investments and give you wisdom and confidence to deal with financial services providers knowing that they are your servants and it is you who brings wealth to them.”

For religious institutions whose well-being depends on the congregation bountifulness, it is a small favor to ask that such a piece be inserted in a service. These institutions would realize that a financially literate congregation is an asset for better future cash flows. Such a message, repeated, would act as an important reminder on the elements of financial literacy and capability. I don’t suppose religious orders would charge to insert such a message, if convinced that such serves their own good and that of their adherents. Over time, the customers will remember the message each time they come across money or money making opportunities.

If this approach is adopted by the financial inclusion leadership, they would then start lobbying with the religious leaders in their areas. If it works, it would save millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on extending financial capability across the world. The thrust argument to religious leaders is that they are stakeholders in financial inclusion and success means more money for their institutions in the form of monetary contributions to support their noble missions.

There could be temptation to think “It is good to leave religion out of the financial inclusion domain since its role is spiritual.” But wait a minute, isn’t religion everywhere across the world? I visualize a member of the clergy asking the congregation to flash out their phones as they would be shown how to use financial features in the phone. I see religious institutions being the vehicles to announce financial inclusion interventions to their congregation such as the introduction of the new village shops that sells all financial products and perhaps even endorsing them for that matter, after studying them. A priest or pastor or Kadhi would be taken seriously when he announces that the world is moving towards branchless banking and consumers should get ready to embrace it. He has a patient and willing audience.

With this possibility, is there any reason to do the hard work of creating new infrastructure for financial capability outreach while we can start with something that already exists?

John Gitau, a financial education consultant and trainer, is the CEO of Kenya Financial Education Centre, an independent centre that offers financial training to staff and clients of financial service providers. His passion is teaching financial literacy and designing financial products for the poor. From 1992 to 2010, he was a Capital Markets Authority regulated investment consultant with Bridges Capital Ltd. He is a master trainer of trainers with the Global Financial Education Program (GFEP), developed by Microfinance Opportunities in collaboration with Freedom from Hunger and Citi Foundation.

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5 comments

This is brilliant, John! Leveraging existing infrastructure to disseminate innovation is always the first option to explore. Not that it is easy; usually that existing infrastructure is composed of people and community with their own self-conception, language and culture that can make it quite difficult for outsiders to offer new ideas in credible, acceptable ways. This can make it seem just too difficult to bother with, which I suspect is why there hasn’t been more effort to reach out to the various religious communities. But you are thinking on the right track — as an insider rather than an outsider, I would guess. Finding and supporting key insiders is the ticket to success.

Moreover, there is ample precedent for religious communities actively supporting financial inclusion. Christian communities have been major actors in establishment of community-based credit unions. The Mouvement Desjardins of Quebec was very closely allied with the Roman Catholic Church of Quebec, to the point that it was said of Quebec in the early 20th century that in every Quebec village, there was a Catholic church and a Desjardins caisse populaire just behind it. The two institutions came to symbolize and underpin Quebecois self-determination.

You have a natural ally at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia: Prof. Brian Fikkert. He understands the issues very well from the point of view of evangelical Protestantism as an agent for international development and financial inclusion in particular. He runs the Chalmers Center there. Check it out and contact him.

I find the idea intriguiging but scary. Like politics, religion is a powerful sword that can be used in both constructive and destructive ways. I’m not sure how to facilitate the constructive without risking the destructive.

Thank you Chris for the lead. I checked out and found that Professor Fikkert is doing great things at Chalmers for financial inclusion. This gives more impetus to my suggestion though admitting that the delivery nuances give credibility to Beth’s fear. I would say constructive ways are in the similarities in objectives -well-being for humanity and destructive ways would result from misinterpretation of the role of religion in the same well-being. The synergetic possibilities I visualized would be distorted perhaps by the conditioned and deeply entrenched ways institutions would want to handle financial inclusion. The secular wouldn’t want, I suppose, to be bogged down by religiousness while the evangelical would want to embed spiritualism in financial inclusion. Harmonizing the two approaches or the desire for each side to have the other cross the floor, is what would bring lethargy to the attempted leveraging. Power competition possibilities could be harsh an allusion? But all said, Chalmers are doing a great job for financial inclusion. Have a look: http://www.covenant.edu/academics/undergrad/ecd/faculty/fikkert

Like Chris, I think this is brilliant. John — one other point you neglected, and perhaps among the most important, is the role of religion for providing simple rules that help in daily decision-making, especially in areas of temptation. I suspect that most individuals, poor or rich, know that borrowing for “temptation goods” such as entertainment is bad. I suspect that most also appreciate that saving for upcoming expenses (such as school fees, the planting season, etc.) is good. It just happens that these aren’t always easy decisions to make. By laying down strong principles, religion can help guide in that decision-making, especially since it brings in the added element of communal/social support.

Indeed, it wasn’t just a handful of religious movements like Desjardins that combined religion with savings. The early years of many savings banks in Europe and N. America were very strongly associated with the religious (mainly Protestant) notions of thrift, along with temperance, upstanding morals, anti-slavery, and so forth. I suspect that was all-around a good thing. Not to say that all financial institutions should join religious orders — having strong secular institutions is deeply important — but really, there’s room for both.

CGAP and others openly and actively promote Islamic banking, which is obviously religious. What’s wrong with rediscovering the lessons from those early roots of savings motivated by religious admonitions of thrift?

Indeed, Daniel, religion joins grandma and great mom as the best inflicters of moral-financial conscience! Thanks you for fertilizing my thoughts. The religion and financial inclusion synergy is so potent that no person is able to ferret out all the inherent gems. Like you have mentioned about Islamic banking, I am not sure if the nascent prosperity gospel wave sweeping the globe is something to count on in reversing the poor’s attitude towards money after centuries of indoctrinating statements such as ” blessed are the poor—-“( of course taken literally by the innocent poor seeking solace in the promise of a better after life). The power of religion in inculcating beliefs and attitude can perhaps only be matched by Military. As a start, we would like to see the poor passionately disliking poverty and desiring the good things that money can help access. Religion, with all its advantages is better suited to do so.

All said, I found Chalmers’ work across the world on financial inclusion very inspiring. Thanks Chris again for linking me with Professor Fikkert who kindly interacted with me on this area. More information can be found athttp://www.chalmers.org/work/gtc/programs/financia